This invention relates in general to improvements in roller mill construction. More specifically, but without restriction to the particular use or application which is shown and described for convenience of illustration, this invention relates to a roller mill having an improved bearing and dust seal construction for improving the operational life of the roller grinding mill by increasing bearing life and decreasing damage to the grinding mill structure occasioned by bearing failure.
As is known to those skilled in the art, roller type grinding mills have many applications wherein materials are milled by a plurality of rollers crushing and milling the material until a particular particle size is obtained. Generally, in such operations a plurality of milling rollers are each rotatably supported by separate shafts about which each roller rotates as they travel in a circular path during the milling operation. In such operations, the environment in which this mechanism operates becomes extremely dusty, frequently resulting in dust particles or particles of the material being milled entering within the roller mill structure where these materials accumulate causing bearing failure within a short time period. The accumulation of such foreign materials in combination with the loading forces imposed on the roller mill during operation prematurely shortens the useful like of such equipment by destroying the friction type bearing heretofore used in such equipment which, upon failure, frequently damages other machine elements.